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To give now and partner with us, visit marinerschurch.org slash give or click the link in the show notes. Thanks for your generosity and God bless you. Welcome to the Mariners Church Life Group leader podcast. This weekly conversation is designed to equip and resource youth to build a healthy life group community that studies God's word, practices spiritual rhythms, and changes the world together.
Life Group leaders, welcome to week one of our brand new series, God with us. I am so excited to jump into the Servant Series with you this Christmas season. It is a profound season. This is a season where we're reminded that God the Son was born in Jesus the Christ, that He came into our world to rescue you, to save us, to redeem us.
And while of course, culture recognizes some of the great things that happen around Christmas and traditions, I mean, this is everything. This is everything for our understanding of who Jesus is, for how we live for Him. And so, man, we're so excited to jump into the series with you together. If you have not already, listen to our series overview, which we released this last Wednesday, ahead sometime to sit down with Eric Geiger and give us an overview of all the weeks in this Servant Series.
So you want to push pause, go back and listen to that before we jump into our week one sermon overview, which we're excited to do. You're just going to have me here today. Unfortunately, due to scheduling conflicts, it's just me. This is John Thomas here.
And so it's going to be me guiding us through this conversation, but we're glad to have you through this. And just a couple of things to highlight first, we are still in the middle of our seek the good serve campaign. And it's been so great to hear stories of many of your life groups that have gone and served with our local outreach partners. And there is still some great opportunities that are available for your groups to jump in and serve all together.
If you're on our distribution list, you should have received an email this last week at well that highlighted some of those remaining serve opportunities. And we really do want to encourage you to spend some time sitting with your group and have the diligence to look at the schedules and say, okay, we're going to do it. We're going to jump into serve. It's true.
We're never more like Jesus when we're serving other people. And Jesus came into our world not to be served but to serve others. And so this is a moment where we get to have that ongoing expression of service. So we want to encourage you to jump in through one of our outreach opportunities to seek the good.
And then of course, during the Christmas season, man, what an amazing time to invite others to experience the hope of Jesus here through our weekend services. And so I want to encourage you in your life groups to be praying, to be intentional, to have your ears and your eyes open with your relationships. Okay, God, who are you encouraging me, nudging me to invite others in to experience you this season at Bears. And then during Christmas season, we want to invite other people.
There's opportunities for you to serve. We're going to hear more about that this weekend where you can attend a service and then serve, jump into our guest service teams, help us serve families or kids ministry. Great opportunities to help host these services with us. And so we want to encourage you to do that.
All right, so seek the good. Jump in and through an outreach serve opportunity. God with us and invite other people to Christmas at Mariners serve out of service and then invite others to experience it. So it's going to be a great, great time together.
All right, we're going to jump in now. See you on week one, week one in the title of this week is God is before us. God is before us. So I'm going to pose the questions and interact with them as I would during my own life group and maybe give you some little leader tips along the way.
And then also, by the way, welcome to new Lycraps. We recently had about 45 life groups that just rebirth out of our fall rooted session. So we're the likely we've got a bunch of new life group leaders that are listening in. So glad to have you guys.
We are just overwhelmed with what God is doing through community and so happy to have you jump in into discipling others as a life group leader. All right, so we're going to jump in first into our lean in question. The leading question is this describe your Christmas decor style. Are you all in or just a touch?
You heard the message this weekend. Eric talked a little bit about some of the fun banter between him and his wife came in their own house about how full on do we get. And I was very much relating to Eric when he talked about I think he mentioned something about man, where I draw the line is the Christmas inflatables, the giant inflatables out front. And in our family, we've done that for years, but this was the year right?
I took a moment and said, do we really need that giant Santa Claus and the and the reindeer inflatable out front. And so we straight back a little bit inside. We went all four with the Christmas lights, but no, no inflatables for us for us for us the year. So what is our decore style?
I mean, I think you could say we're all in, but in a stylistic sort of way. So just ask about talking about that. Hey, when did you when did you decorate? Were you pre Thanksgiving post Thanksgiving?
If you're not decorated yet and again, that's just getting people talking because the more that people engage the lean in, the more likely they're going to engage through the rest of your question. So have some fun. Have some fun with that. Right.
And then the next section is look down. And again, this is where we literally look down at the passage and we're drawing out observations in the text. So we're looking at God's word and just a tip on this because it's not necessarily written like this in your in your leader guide, your questions, but the best thing that you can do is pose the questions before you read the passage. That's really helpful because it gets people thinking about those particular questions interacting with the text.
If you just read the text and then say, okay, now here's the questions, you may get blank stares because people may be like, ah, can we go back and read it again? Or I wasn't prepared for that kind of a question. So pose the questions before you read the text and you've got a couple of questions here related to your look down where it says, what does this passage tell us about Jesus? And what do we learn about why the word became flesh?
What is this passage tells about Jesus? What do we learn about why the word became flesh? I'm going to go ahead and read the John 1 through 1 through 18 and then interact with that a little bit here. It says this in the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him and apart from him, not one thing was created that has been created in him was life and that life was the light of men. That light shines in the darkness and yet the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man set from God whose name was John and he came as a witness to testify about the light so that all might believe through him and he was he was not the light referring to John, but he came to testify about the light.
John, John the Baptist right foretold about the Messiah. He's coming verse nine, the true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was created through him and yet the world did not recognize him. He came to his own.
It is on people did not receive him, but to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be the children of God to those who believe in his name who were born not of natural descent or of the will, the flesh or the will of man, but of God and the word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only son from the father full of grace and truth. John testified concerning him and exclaimed, this was the one of whom I said the one after me ranks ahead of me because he existed before me. He existed before me.
Indeed, we have all received grace upon grace from his fullness for the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. Not one has ever no one has ever seen God, the only the one and only son who is himself God and is the father side. He has revealed him. All right, so lots of different things that you could observe through the passage about what this passage tells us about about Jesus.
But of course, you're going to be listening to the message this week and you're going to realize that, wow, there are a few things that were really a highlight through the teaching that we want to double click on. And so a few things that you can see, well, okay, great, we have this understanding that Jesus wasn't created, that he was pre-existing, that Jesus as this message, the main thesis of this message is he is before. So Jesus is the pre-existing one. He wasn't created, but he's always, he's always been.
There's never been a time where God, the father, wasn't God the father, God the son, and God the Holy Spirit. You could say with theological precision, I was guided through this, I love this, that seminar or a equipping thing we did with our resident theologian Ed Stetser. He talked about how we can understand the incarnation of Jesus, the pre-existing one. And he gave some helpful language to talk about it.
It's God the son, God the son always there, pre-existing, God the son was born, Jesus, Jesus the Christ. So God was always there. So that's an important truth for us to know that he is before all things. So in the beginning was the word, he's before all things.
And also tells us that all things were created through him, that he wasn't created, but all things were created through him, through Jesus. You'll see several times in the past as the word, light. John uses that prescription of Jesus as light and the light overcoming darkness. Well, what does light do?
Light illuminates truth. Light brings us into a full-rich understanding. It tells us that Jesus was the true light, meaning that there were false lights and things that pretended to be light. And Jesus comes to say, no, I am the way, the truth.
I am the light. And then we also see that great rhythmic understanding of the word became flesh and dwelt among us that the incarnation that God took on flesh to be with us, to be with his people, the creator dwelling with the created, to be with us. So so many deep truths that you can pull out of what we learn about Jesus, but all these things, I mean, they tell us clearly, the one who was before all things, the one through whom all things were created, the one who is the true light, God incarnate, that Jesus is of such important significance that what others may understand about Jesus in the topic of Jesus is there for people during this Christmas season. Is he just a moral teacher or maybe he's an example or maybe he came for some political agenda or you know what, maybe he's like the other prophets in the Old Testament, it's like, no, Jesus is the son of God, God in flesh in a category all by, all by himself.
So what do we learn about that? What do we learn about the word becoming flesh? Well, we learned that he came to be with us. We learned that he came to dwell with his people, that he was full of grace and truth, to be with us, to associate with our, with our, our own pain and our own brokenness, to be with us, that he's empathetic because he has, as scripture says, he was tempted in every way that we were tempted, that he's not detached, but he's with his people, not just with us, but he's actually overcome all the things that we face as well.
So many truths that you can pull out in those 18 verses. Then we move on to the lookout section. A couple of questions here, mainly jumping off of verses 10 through 11 that says that the world was created through Jesus and Jesus was in the world, but the world didn't recognize it, didn't receive it, the world didn't recognize Jesus and didn't receive him. Questions here, how do you see this in a world today?
How do you think people don't recognize or receive Jesus? I mean, you could summarize those questions of, hey, why do people miss Jesus today? What does that look like? What are the hindrances for people seeing the true light, true light of Jesus?
And lots of things that you could point off there. I mean, people write him off. For some, they think it's an intellectual thing. But there's no way that this could be true.
For others, they think it's a prideful thing. Well, even if it is true, I don't need that. I don't need a savior. I don't need God's grace and mercy in my life.
I've got it all. I've got it all figured out. Or maybe they look at the message of Jesus in the associated with sometimes the brokenness that comes around with those that follow Jesus. And they may think, man, if this is what Jesus is about, then maybe that's not for me.
So there's lots of different reasons and things that you can kick around there for why do people miss Jesus today? Why do they reject Jesus today? And then we move on to the look in. But I love this.
There's a few different things here. What's one phrase from John 1, 1 through 18 that the Holy Spirit is emphasizing for you? Another question, what does it mean to you in this season in your life that the God who is before all things, who goes before all things, that he's with you in every challenging moment? So how does this truth that God has before all things speak to the challenges that you face today?
He's before all things. So how does that bring me encouragement for today? And then the last question, what are some ways you might acknowledge and receive Jesus the true light this week? So lots of different things that you can interact with there.
I do love that discipline of looking back at the passage in say, okay, great. We've talked about some general observations. What is it for you? What is the Holy Spirit illuminating to you right now to bring you encouragement, challenge?
And then ask why? Okay, if someone says, you know, I just let that came in, and he's full of grace and truth. That's the one that got highlighting for me. Then the next question, but why?
Why is that? Why do you think that is? Why is he highlighting that for you? And then why is that important for you to be reminded and then also to live out of that space?
You can spend loads of time just doing that going in your circle. What's the thing that got us highlighting for you? And why is that? Why is that important?
And then that other key question of, okay, why is this theological truth that Jesus is before all things? What is what encouragement does that bring to me in my present circumstance? Well, it's amazing. It's amazing to know that God is sovereign and he's good that he sees every moment of our lives, that there's nothing that is beyond his span of redemption and restoration, that he knows the difficulty that you have faced or currently facing that you will face, and that he's given you this sustaining grace, the power of his presence in and through all of those things that he's with you, that yes, he's, he's glorious and he's grand and he's the uncreated one, but he's intimate, he's near and he's close and he's available.
He's our ever present health in our time of needs. So lots of things that you can have dialogue there as well. All right, well, man, there's so much, there's so much to talk about here in week one. I want to encourage you to be reminded that this isn't an exercise of man, I got to get through every single question and get through all the fine points like as it is when you lead your groups, you want to you want to use the sermon of where's God moving, where do the things that you want to, what do you want to camp on, but of course keeping it within the real realm of what we are drawing people into during this week.
And that is the deep truth that Jesus, the pre-existed one, that he wasn't created at Christmas, he's always been, he was their creation before all, he entered into our world at Christmas, he took on human flesh, he's always been before us, and because he's always been before us, we can always have a new beginning with him, we can always trust in him, he's always for us, and so there's so much, so much rich truth to kick around in your groups this week. All right, well, life group leaders, we look forward to seeing you this weekend, going to be an incredible weekend across all of our congregations as we begin this new sermon series, God with us.